One more hurdle for Volt: Incompetent EPA holds up sales

General Motors has begun commercial production of the Chevrolet Volt, producing cars at the automaker’s Detroit plant intended for sale or lease to consumers.

But there’s one final problem, one that’s been dragging on for years, that needs to get cleared up.

It’s illegal to sell new cars in the United States without an EPA fuel economy label — and the government still hasn’t figured out how to measure the Volt’s fuel economy. That means no fuel economy label and that means GM dealers still can’t start selling the cars.

“We’re having good discussions with them," GM spokesman Nick Richards said of the company’s continuing work with the EPA.

GM is confident the problem will be resolved by mid-December, Richards said, so the automaker can stick to its plan to begin Volt sales by the end of the year.

[Editor's Note: Perhaps the mental midgets at the EPA could do this simple change – include several ratings with qualifiers: 1) Infinite MPG if you never driver more than 40 miles in a day, 2) XX MPG if you average 100 miles per day, 3) YY MPG if you average 100 miles in a day. We think humans would be able to perform an interpolation of where they fall and make a decision to buy or not based on that information.]